Showing 1 – 6 of 6 results.
Curated
Children's Out-of-Court Statements: Effects of Hearsay on Jurors' Decisions in Sacramento County, California, and Maricopa County, Arizona, 1994-1997 (ICPSR 2791)
Released/updated on: 2006-03-30
Geographic coverage: United States, California, Arizona
Time period: 1994-01-01--1997-12-31
The goal of this project was to investigate the effects of children's out-of-court hearsay statements on jurors' perceptions of witness credibility and defendant guilt. To accomplish this goal, three studies were conducted. The studies represented a series of increasingly ecologically valid investigations: mock jurors' perceptions of children's live and hearsay statements about a mock crime (Study 1), mock jurors' perceptions of real child sexual abuse victims' hearsay statements (Study 2), and actual jurors' perceptions of real child sexual abuse victims' hearsay statements (Study 3). In these contexts, "hearsay statements" are the repetition of a child's out-of-court statements in a court trial, either via a videotaped recording of the child's testimony in a forensic interview with a social worker or as described by an adult (the social worker or a police officer) who interviewed the child. The three studies permitted researchers to examine factors that jurors use to evaluate the reliability of children's hearsay evidence. The mock crime in Study 1 was touching the child on the stomach, nose, or neck. Jurors were instructed to consider those acts as if they were battery against a child. In Study 1, elaborate mock trials concerning the above mock crime were conducted under three trial conditions: (1) the child testified live in court, (2) a videotape of a simulated forensic interview with the child was presented, or (3) adult hearsay was presented (i.e., a social worker testified about what the child had said in the simulated forensic interview). A total of 370 mock jurors participated in Study 1, which was conducted in Sacramento County, California. In Study 2, videotapes of actual forensic interviews from real child sexual abuse cases were incorporated into mock trials instead of having live child testimony. The last two trial conditions in Study 2 were the same as those for Study 1, except that a police officer provided the adult hearsay testimony instead of a social worker. For Study 2, 170 mock jurors served on 15 main juries, which were held in Sacramento County, California. For both Studies 1 and 2, pre- and post-deliberation questionnaires were completed by mock jurors to ascertain their views on the credibility of the child and adult testimonies, the importance of various pieces of evidence, and the guilt of the defendant. Demographic questionnaires were also filled out before the mock trials. In Study 3, real jurors from actual child sexual abuse trials were surveyed regarding their judgments of child and adult testimonies. The three trial conditions that were present in Studies 1 and 2 (live child testimony, videotaped testimony, and adult hearsay testimony) were also experienced by the Study 3 participants. These jurors also indicated the importance of various types of evidence and provided demographic data. A total of 248 jurors representing 43 juries from Sacramento County, California, and Maricopa County, Arizona, participated in Study 3. This collection includes aggregated data prepared from the Study 3 data to provide mean values for each of the 42 juries, as calculated from the individual juror responses. Data for one jury were eliminated from the aggregated data by the principal investigators. Variables from the demographic questionnaire for Studies 1 and 2 include trial condition, respondent's age, gender, marital status, occupation, ethnic background, religious orientation, and highest grade attained in school, if the respondent supported the death penalty, if the respondent was ever a victim of crime, number of children the respondent had, if the respondent was a United States citizen, if the respondent's native language was English, and if he or she had ever been a police officer, a convicted felon, a lawyer, or a judge. The pre-deliberation questionnaire for Study 1 asked jurors if they felt that the defendant was guilty, and how confident they were of the defendant's guilt or innocence. Jurors were also asked to assess the accuracy of various facts as given in the social worker's interview of the child and the child's statements in the taped interview, and what the likelihood was of the child's being influenced by the social worker, prosecutor, and/or defense attorney. Questions about the trial included the juror's assessment of the defendant, the social worker, and the research assistant. Jurors were also asked about the influence of various factors on their decisions regarding whether to believe the individuals in the case. Jurors' open-ended comments were coded on the most important factors in believing or doubting the child or the social worker, the most important evidence in the case, and whether anything could have been done to make the trial more fair. Post-deliberation questions in Study 1 included whether the defendant was guilty, how confident the juror was of the defendant's guilt or innocence regarding various charges in the case, and the final verdict of the jury. Questions similar to those in Study 1 were asked in the pre-deliberation questionnaire for Study 2, which also included respondents' opinions of the police officer, the mother, the doctor, and the use of anatomical dolls. The Study 2 post-deliberation questionnaire included questions on whether the defendant was guilty, how confident the juror was of the defendant's guilt or innocence, and the juror's assessment of the social worker's videotaped interview and the police officer's testimony. Variables from the Study 3 juror survey include the county/state where the trial was held, the juror's age, gender, ethnic background, and highest grade attained in school, if the juror supported the death penalty, if he or she was ever a victim of crime, and the amount of contact he or she had with children. Questions about the trial include the number of children the defendant was charged with abusing, the main child's age and gender, if a videotape was shown at trial, who interviewed the child on the videotape, the impact of seeing the videotape on the juror's decision to believe the child, the number of children who testified at the trial, and if the child was involved in a custody dispute. Additional questions focused on the defendant's relationship to the main child, who the first person was that the child told about the abuse, if the main child testified in court, the most important evidence in the case in the opinion of the juror, the jury's verdict, and how fair the juror considered the trial. Finally, jurors were asked about the influence of various factors on their decision to believe or doubt the individuals in the case. Data in Study 3 also include coded open-ended responses to several questions. Variables provided for the Study 3 aggregated data consist of the calculated mean values for each of the 42 juries for most of the variables in the Study 3 juror survey data.
Curated
Dynamics of Change in the Criminal Case Plea Bargaining System: New York City, 1800-1890 (ICPSR 6501)
Released/updated on: 2006-01-12
Geographic coverage: New York City, United States, New York (state)
Time period: 1800-01-01--1890-12-31
This study analyzes the ascendancy of a single form of dispute processing--the guilty plea--in New York City's principal indictment court, and its connection to law enforcement, judges, and lawyers. A major component of the study is a statistical analysis of data presented in the Minute Book of Court of General Sessions and maintained at the New York City Archives. A second data source is the New York City district attorney's case files, also maintained at the New York City Archives. Part 1, District Attorney Case File Data, contains a sample of cases throughout the century taken from the district attorney's files. Variables cover charge filed, method of arrest, nature of testimony, presence of the lawyers, role of police, private prosecutor, and magistrate, and demographic information about the defendant and victim. Part 2, Lawyer Data, records the frequency of the appearance of individual lawyers, the charges in the cases in which they appeared, the lawyering activities they undertook, and the method of case disposition. Part 3, Minute Book Data, reflects the workday of the Court of General Sessions, including the number of cases processed in court on any given day, the number of defendants tried, the details of charges, joinder, witness examinations, outcome and sentence, and the number pleading guilty. Part 4, Cases Tried Data, not only records cases tried but also includes the top count, legal representation, result, and sentence, and for cases pleading guilty contains the top count charged, top count accepted, and sentence imposed. District Attorney Reference Data, Part 5, contains cases in which copies of the district attorney's papers were not found. These cases occurred on the same day as cases for which copies of the district attorney's papers were recorded. This data served as a control group for the District Attorney Case File Data.
Curated
Effects of Cognitive Interviewing, Practice, and Interview Style on Children's Recall Performance in California, 1989-1990 (ICPSR 9789)
Released/updated on: 2005-11-04
Geographic coverage: United States, California
Time period: 1989-01-01--1990-12-31
This data collection, designed to improve the quality of children's testimony in court, evaluates how different types of interview formats affect the completeness and accuracy of children's recall performance. Specifically, the study assesses the impact of a "practice interview" about an event on the completeness and accuracy of later reports about a second, unrelated event. Three interview conditions were employed, and each condition consisted of both a practice interview and a target interview. The three conditions were RS, RC, and CC, where "R" represents a practice session with rapport-building only, "S" represents a target interview that contained all components of the standard interview procedure, and "C" represents either a practice or target interview that contained all components of the cognitive interview procedure. In rapport-building sessions, interviewers talked about school activities, family life, and favorite games with the child. In standard and cognitive interview sessions, the rapport-building sessions were followed by a request from the interviewer for the child to verbalize a narrative account of "what happened" during an event that had been previously staged by the experimenter. This narrative account was then followed by the interviewer's request for additional information about the event. Cognitive interviews also included several additional questions that were hypothesized to improve recall performance. The number of correct items recalled and the number of incorrect items generated were used to compare the performance of children in the three interview conditions.
Curated
Simple Crosstabs
Improving Juror Comprehension of Forensic Testimony and Its Effects on Decision-Making and Evidence Evaluation, United States, 2020 (ICPSR 39002)
Released/updated on: 2025-02-13
Geographic coverage: United States
Time period: 2020-01-01--2020-12-31
Forensic science plays a vital role in the prosecution of criminal matters. Jurors, however, struggle with understanding both the science and statistics that underlie such testimony. Prior research on the effectiveness of jury instructions in training jurors to understand science and scientific testimony has been split, with some studies finding a beneficial effect, some finding no effect, and some finding that they cause jurors to be skeptical even of high-quality testimony. Here, investigators sought to empirically test the effectiveness of an instructional video at improving jurors' ability to detect low-quality forensic testimony. For the purposes of this study, testimony quality was defined based on the Department of Justice's Uniform Language for Testimony and Reports (DOJ ULTR).
The Gender Effects Paper Study Data made available through ICPSR includes data from the Main Study and a second pilot study conducted by researchers. These data were compiled to examine the impact of a forensic expert's gender on jurors' assessments of the quality of the expert's testimony.
There are two additional datasets associated with this study:
- Main Study: Dataset contains survey results from a sample of 509 jury-eligible U.S adults who participated in the Main Study.
- Pilot Study: Dataset contains survey results from a sample of 229 jury-eligible university undergraduates who completed the Pilot Study.
Curated
Restricted
Jurors' Judgments About Forensic Identification Evidence, Arizona, 2011-2014 (ICPSR 36169)
Released/updated on: 2021-08-31
Geographic coverage: United States, Arizona
Time period: 2008-01-01--2008-12-31
This data file describes three different experiments that were designed to examine how differences in the way forensic scientific evidence is communicated affects jurors.
In each experiment, participants consisted of jury-eligible community members in Maricopa County, Arizona. Groups of participants attended a research session in which they were shown a 35-40-minute videotapes of one of two mock criminal trials (one, a rape case, centers around bitemark evidence, and the other, an attempted murder, centers around fingerprint evidence). Within each trial the content of a forensic scientist's testimony was manipulated. These manipulations involved: 1) whether the technique used by the forensic scientist was "high tech" or "low tech," 2) the amount of experience possessed by the forensic scientist, 3) whether the technique used by the forensic scientist had been scientifically validated, 4) whether the forensic scientist conceded that an error was possible, and 5) whether any exculpatory evidence was present at the crime scene.
Immediately following the trial, each individual participants completed a questionnaire in which they gave their individual impressions of the strength of the case. Following that, the group of participant would deliberate and attempt to reach a unanimous verdict. Finally, each individual participant completed an additional questionnaire that again measured perceptions of the case along with individual difference measures and demographics.
Curated
Partially restricted
Simple Crosstabs
National Survey of Eyewitness Identification Procedure in Law Enforcement Agencies, 1994-2012 (ICPSR 34274)
Released/updated on: 2014-03-07
Geographic coverage: United States
Time period: 1994-01-01--2012-12-31
The data results from a study conducted by the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) designed to obtain the first nationwide assessment of the state of the criminal justice field regarding eyewitness identification procedures used by law enforcement agencies. PERF designed and conducted a survey of 619 police departments across the United States. The study focused on the departments training and policy when conducting eyewitness identification; particularly the study examined the use of "blind" administrators and the use of simultaneous or sequential presentation to the witness. The number of lineup members, witness instructions, police training, number of witness viewings and recording of the witness statements were also examined. A pilot test of the survey was conducted prior to the study.